Ten years ago, on July 27, 2005, the U.S. Senate passed a joint resolution to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act that was signed on August 1, 1975, in Helsinki, Finland, also known as the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (now known as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE).
The 30th anniversary resolution called on the president to issue a proclamation in recognition of this milestone international agreement, which paved the way for human rights to become the focus of international relations. In Kyiv, as in Moscow, the Helsinki monitoring groups served as watchdogs of Soviet compliance with the accords’ human rights provisions.
The resolution stated:
“…during the Communist era, members of non-governmental organizations, such as the Helsinki Monitoring Groups in Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Georgia and Armenia and similar groups in Czechoslovakia and Poland, sacrificed their personal freedom and even their lives in their courageous and vocal support for the principles enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act.”
“…in the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe, the participating states in the OSCE, declared that ‘human rights and fundamental freedoms are the birthright of all human beings, are inalienable and are guaranteed by law’ and that ‘their protection and promotion is the first responsibility of government.’ ”
In the 1991 Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the OSCE, cited in the resolution, the participating states declared “that the commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the OSCE are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating states and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the state concerned.”
In Section D, Part 2, the resolution urges the president “to convey to all signatories of the Helsinki Final Act that respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, democratic principles, economic liberty and the implementation of related commitments continue to be vital elements in promoting a new era of democracy, peace and unity in the region covered by the OSCE.”
Forty years ago, a mere week after the signing of the Helsinki Accords, a U.S. delegation of 18 members of Congress went on a trip to Moscow to meet with their Soviet counterparts. Two days later, on August 10, 1975, the congressional delegation met with 18 Jewish dissidents in the lobby of the Moscow hotel where the U.S. legislators were staying. On August 12, 1975, the U.S. delegation presented a list of 1,000 Ukrainians and Jews who were political prisoners to the Soviets. The Soviets complained that the U.S. was damaging relations by constantly bringing up human rights.
Serbia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Ivica Dačić currently heads the OSCE, but it was under the Ukrainian chairmanship of the OSCE that the Helsinki +40 Working Group was launched at the level of permanent representatives of the OSCE participating states.
The OSCE’s scope today has expanded to include military transparency, arms control, economic and environmental issues, policing, fighting human trafficking and combating terrorism, among other areas of cooperation, including the Special Monitoring Mission of the OSCE in Ukraine.
Source: “Senate passes resolution marking anniversary of Helsinki Final Act,” The Ukrainian Weekly, August 7, 2005.